Lightelligence's PACE is an advanced photonic computing platform that integrates a 64x64 optical matrix multiplier into a silicon photonic chip alongside a CMOS microelectronic chip. This fully integrated system employs sophisticated 3D packaging technology and contains over 12,000 discrete photonic devices. The PACE platform is designed to operate at a system clock of 1GHz, making it ideal for ultra-low latency and energy-efficient applications.
The platform's architecture is powered by the Optical Multiply Accumulate (oMAC) technology, which is essential for performing optical matrix multiplications. Input vectors are initially extracted from on-chip SRAM and converted into analog values, which are then modulated optically. The resulting optical vector propagates through an optical matrix to generate an output vector, which undergoes conversion back to the digital domain after being detected by an array of photodetectors.
PACE aims to tackle computational challenges, particularly in scenarios like solving Ising problems, where interactions are encoded in an adjacency matrix. The photonic processing capabilities of PACE are geared towards speeding up numerous applications, including bioinformatics, route planning, and materials research, promising significant breakthroughs in chip design and computational efficiency.
